Russian Study Group

An area with study groups for various languages. Group members help each other, share resources and experience. Study groups are permanent but the members rotate and change.
Haiku D'etat
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Haiku D'etat » Mon Apr 15, 2019 12:32 pm

I've recently bought this book:

Image

I'm wondering - how do I use it :lol:? It's a list of roots, and words based on those roots, with example sentences. There's always the instinct to stick them in Anki and work my way through them, but I don't know how to organise the cards effectively. I want to get a deep appreciation for the links between words via their roots, but also focus my studying on the most important words first, rather than taking a scatter-gun approach and learning all entries indiscriminately. Does anyone have experience in using such bare reference lists?
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David1917
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby David1917 » Mon Apr 15, 2019 6:22 pm

Haiku D'etat wrote:I've recently bought this book:

Image

I'm wondering - how do I use it :lol:? It's a list of roots, and words based on those roots, with example sentences. There's always the instinct to stick them in Anki and work my way through them, but I don't know how to organise the cards effectively. I want to get a deep appreciation for the links between words via their roots, but also focus my studying on the most important words first, rather than taking a scatter-gun approach and learning all entries indiscriminately. Does anyone have experience in using such bare reference lists?


I recently asked this very question in another thread on "root-based dictionaries" or something like that, because this book came up. Indeed, I've seen people over the years including Alexander Arguelles talk about this book in particular as a fantastic resource for building Russian vocabulary. I adapted an approach Arguelles recommended on the old forum for learning Chinese characters to this book and, found it to be extremely helpful. It's an old-school, pen & paper rote activity, but it worked for me.

The original post on Chinese was essentially, get your list of 500 important characters/radicals (in my case I used McNaughton's book) and write them out by hand in sequential waves:

1-10, then 1-20, 1-30, 1-40...1-100. Then
10-110, 20-120, 30-130...100-200. Then
1-200, 10-210, 20-220...100-300. etc. working up to writing 1-500.

I had been doing this for awhile when I made my own post questioning how to use this book, and halfway through writing it realized I ought to adapt this method. I did it for a couple weeks but fell behind due to time constraints, but I did find even that small amount of work to be extremely helpful in being able to parse new words in context.

I base my approach off of each root, rather than considering each word as an isolated entry. So I took the first root, wrote out each word while making sure to read the example sentences and understand the nuanced meaning of each. Then I did the first two roots. Then the first three, etc. I did this until I ended up with a string of roots that I could write all the words down in about 15 minutes. Then I just shifted forward as with the Chinese approach: start with the words in the 2nd root, write up until the next new root, and so on.

One thing I did not do, that I wish I did, was to read/write out the example words in the introduction first. I just wanted to jump in and try this approach, but I feel that the preparation of having worked through the intro in this way may have helped a little bit.

As for the example sentences, you could put them into Anki for sure. They are decent and many seem to come from the press, rather than being simply constructed by the author. I don't really enjoy Anki so I haven't found a good use for them yet. I also haven't really looked at the exercises in the back in any detail, but I think they might more or less send you on a scavenger hunt through the book to pluck words with certain infixes or something.
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Arnaud
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Arnaud » Mon Apr 15, 2019 6:44 pm

In the book "Leveraging your russian with roots, suffixes and prefixes" the author gives a list of roots divided on 5 levels (pdf floating around)
Good book too, the prefixes and suffixes are well explained and there are also 5-6 pages dedicated to the indo-european roots of the slavic and latin/greek roots at the end, so you have little explainations like вер-> ie: *uer -> belief, trust / lat: verus->true, right so you see the connection between вер and verity, verify (sometimes the connections are difficult to see for a non-specialist, but it's interesting)
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Kess
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby Kess » Thu Apr 18, 2019 6:51 am

Haiku D'etat wrote:I've recently bought this book:

Image

I'm wondering - how do I use it :lol:? It's a list of roots, and words based on those roots, with example sentences. There's always the instinct to stick them in Anki and work my way through them, but I don't know how to organise the cards effectively. I want to get a deep appreciation for the links between words via their roots, but also focus my studying on the most important words first, rather than taking a scatter-gun approach and learning all entries indiscriminately. Does anyone have experience in using such bare reference lists?



i downloaded this book free. if anybody need i can share.
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irbytremor
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby irbytremor » Fri May 03, 2019 7:31 pm

Hello all, newbie to this thread (and indeed to the forums as a whole), thought I'd introduce myself.

Why on earth did you pick Russian?
I studied French and Italian at university, and after graduating I fancied trying something outside of the Romance languages family, both for a bit of variety and also for a challenge! I went to Moscow and St Petersburg a couple of years ago and I loved it, and am determined to return and be able to communicate with the locals. Plus, did a bit of Latin at school and always thought it'd be cool to be able to speak a language with a case system. Oh, and the alphabet! Ooh, and the literature! And history! A lot of reasons I guess - Russian is great.

How long have you been studying?
5 or 6 months. Learnt the alphabet back in September then dipped my toe in a tiny bit - then have been studying every day since December.

What are your goals?
I'm going back to uni for a master's in the autumn, and I want to get to A2 so I can enrol in an intensive A2-->B1 course at the university's language centre. So that's the plan in the next 4-5 months. I'd say I'm probably at A1 now. Longer term I would like to reach B1/B2 and study Russian language at a university in Russia - the courses (and living costs) are relatively inexpensive and it seems like one of the best ways to achieve total immersion and meet real Russians to practice with. But I'd ideally like to speak at a decent level before I go, so I can actually make friends and not feel completely daunted! Been looking at cities outside of Moscow/Peter to get a more "authentic" Russian experience without so many pesky English speakers. Interested in Kazan, Novosibirsk, maybe Irkutsk. Eventual big goal is Dostoevsky in the original oh yes sir.
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David1917
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby David1917 » Fri May 03, 2019 8:14 pm

irbytremor wrote:Hello all, newbie to this thread (and indeed to the forums as a whole), thought I'd introduce myself.

Why on earth did you pick Russian?
I studied French and Italian at university, and after graduating I fancied trying something outside of the Romance languages family, both for a bit of variety and also for a challenge! I went to Moscow and St Petersburg a couple of years ago and I loved it, and am determined to return and be able to communicate with the locals. Plus, did a bit of Latin at school and always thought it'd be cool to be able to speak a language with a case system. Oh, and the alphabet! Ooh, and the literature! And history! A lot of reasons I guess - Russian is great.

How long have you been studying?
5 or 6 months. Learnt the alphabet back in September then dipped my toe in a tiny bit - then have been studying every day since December.

What are your goals?
I'm going back to uni for a master's in the autumn, and I want to get to A2 so I can enrol in an intensive A2-->B1 course at the university's language centre. So that's the plan in the next 4-5 months. I'd say I'm probably at A1 now. Longer term I would like to reach B1/B2 and study Russian language at a university in Russia - the courses (and living costs) are relatively inexpensive and it seems like one of the best ways to achieve total immersion and meet real Russians to practice with. But I'd ideally like to speak at a decent level before I go, so I can actually make friends and not feel completely daunted! Been looking at cities outside of Moscow/Peter to get a more "authentic" Russian experience without so many pesky English speakers. Interested in Kazan, Novosibirsk, maybe Irkutsk. Eventual big goal is Dostoevsky in the original oh yes sir.


Welcome! Yes, it seems that even a chance visit to Russia can inspire one to learn the language and seek to return for an even deeper experience. The same happened to me, and some of my mentors as well, это судьба))

What school are you going to?

As far as getting a more immersive experience, that can be achieved in Moscow, though I know what you mean and think Kazan is a great option, as it is an extremely beautiful little city. You might also look at places like Vladimir, Nizhniy Novgorod, or Vladivostok. Heck if you go to FEFU in the latter, then you might as well take the Trans Siberian both ways and really get some immersion.
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IronMike
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby IronMike » Fri May 03, 2019 8:57 pm

Wow, Irkutsk. Middle of nowhere. My wife loved it there. She went in 2010 or 11 for the ice marathon on lake Baikal.
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You're not a C1 (or B1 or whatever) if you haven't tested.
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irbytremor
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby irbytremor » Fri May 03, 2019 9:06 pm

David1917 wrote:Welcome! Yes, it seems that even a chance visit to Russia can inspire one to learn the language and seek to return for an even deeper experience. The same happened to me, and some of my mentors as well, это судьба))

What school are you going to?

As far as getting a more immersive experience, that can be achieved in Moscow, though I know what you mean and think Kazan is a great option, as it is an extremely beautiful little city. You might also look at places like Vladimir, Nizhniy Novgorod, or Vladivostok. Heck if you go to FEFU in the latter, then you might as well take the Trans Siberian both ways and really get some immersion.


Thank you!

I'm going to Oxford - will mainly be doing French Literature, but the faculty is offering to pay for a course at the language centre, and I figured it would be more useful to have a teacher for a tricky language like Russian, so started looking into it, and now I'm hooked!

Cheers for the recommendations - one of my friends lived in Nizhny for a year so I'll have to ask her what she thinks of it too. Have you lived in Russia at all?
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IronMike
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby IronMike » Fri May 03, 2019 10:10 pm

I know you didn't ask me, but I'l reply anyway. ))

Beauty of Vladimir is it is close enough to Moscow that if you need culture, or you want to pay too much for dinner, you're not too far away.

Other cities to look at that also would be affordable: Ekaterinburg, Khabarovsk, Tyumen, Ufa (my favorite). I absolutely loved Rostov-na-Donu, but as you're getting closer to the water there it might be getting a bit more expensive. There's also Gelendzhik, kinda Sochi-light, so perhaps it would be less expensive? Sure seemed like it was, at least food, beer, that sort of thing, but that's back in 2010 or 11 that I went. But right on the Black Sea. So damn pretty.

Good luck!
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You're not a C1 (or B1 or whatever) if you haven't tested.
CEFR --> ILR/DLPT equivalencies
My swimming life.
My reading life.

David1917
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Re: Russian Study Group

Postby David1917 » Sat May 04, 2019 12:40 am

irbytremor wrote:I'm going to Oxford - will mainly be doing French Literature, but the faculty is offering to pay for a course at the language centre, and I figured it would be more useful to have a teacher for a tricky language like Russian, so started looking into it, and now I'm hooked!

Cheers for the recommendations - one of my friends lived in Nizhny for a year so I'll have to ask her what she thinks of it too. Have you lived in Russia at all?


Must be nice. I got waitlisted from them 2 years in a row for the Russian MPhil and MSc :(

If you've got a free course in Russian, then by all means, that sounds great. Get to a high level, then when you go back you'll reap all the more benefits. I'm not sure what partnerships, if any, Oxford has, but Higher School of Economics in Moscow has Summer University (and SPb & Nizhny - not sure what modules they offer, I did Moscow) but I think they offer the language in all 3 cities.

If the politics/history ever interest you, look up Roy Allison at St Anthony's. He is awesome, and wrote one of the best books on Russian foreign policy.
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